The self-bound seam has a similar effect to a French seam. It’s a great technique on sheer fabrics where you can see the underside of the seam.
The process
I’m using sheer fabric with embroidery for this example.
Sew a regular ol’ seam with right-sides together. I thought I had right-sides together, but I guess I should have worn my glasses because I faced the beaded embroidery the wrong way. Just pretend I did it the correct way. In this example I sewed a 1/2″ seam allowance.
Don’t press your seam open. Instead, lay the fabric as shown and trim only the top seam allowance to about 1/8″. I could have done a prettier job on this step. 🙂
Now take the untrimmed seam allowance and press under half way, so in my case, about 1/4″. You are pressing it OVER the trimmed side.
Fold and press again so that the trimmed seam allowance is encased and the folded edge barely extends past the stitching of the original seam.Stitch close to the edge so that you are more or less going over the original stitches from the first seam.
From the other side of the seam allowance, but still on the wrong side of the fabric, it looks like this with two rows of stitching that should overlap.
Press to one side. From the other side, if you have a sheer fabric, it looks like this. Pretty easy, eh?
